Pointing Fingers
by heytherehoyhoy
Summary: Because why should Natsu get all the credit for being stupid when Lucy's just as oblivious as he is?


**A/N: Okay, I know that Lucy lives in her own apartment - but for the sake of this story, let's pretend that she lives in Fairy Hills with the rest of the girls.**

Pointing Fingers

"Hey Luce, you wanna go to dinner with me sometime? I'll buy."

It's the "_with me_" part that catches her off guard (she had assumed that that was already a given) when he asks her out that evening in the guild - as they're locking up - and she can't stop the laughter that spills out. And she thinks it's a joke - a terribly funny prank - a dare because Natsu has never asked her to go anywhere with him and she didn't think he'd start now. So when she sees the disheartened look on his face, she realizes very belatedly that it's not.

"Well, it's just that - I mean, you said that _you'd_ be paying." Awkwardly clearing her throat, she finishes lamely, "I don't know, it's - I just - I thought it was funny." He's still staring at her, waiting for an answer and suddenly, her mind isn't functioning properly because he seems dead serious (and that couldn't _possibly_ be right.)

She simply mumbles "_I'll think about it_" and leaves.

Her whole run home is filled with thought-provoking questions (it's the type of person Lucy is, _whatever_) and she thinks she might just be going crazy because this is Natsu Dragneel we're talking about here and yeah, she's liked him for a long time - but _he's_ making the first move? She must be missing something here.

The fire dragon slayer bumps into her at the bar the next day and he seems just about as gung-ho as he is about everything everyday (meanwhile, she's thinking hard thoughts and killing more brain cells than any philosopher history's ever known.) He doesn't even bring the subject up - doesn't _even_ mention it - and she's sitting there and it's all she can think about.

For some reason, that aggravates her.

She ends up avoiding him for the rest of the week.

After a handful of days have gone by, she's finally made her decision (she likes to think her life choices through, so what?) And she goes up to the pink-haired mage where he and Gray are duking it out - with their _words_ - over who's more likely to win a theoretical arm-wrestling match (but of course, no legitimate physical action has been taken.) She shakes her head at their trivial topic before tapping Natsu on the shoulder. He turns around with a start, looking genuinely surprised (she supposes that she's been neglecting him a little.) He blinks at her questioningly before, in a matter of seconds, his confused expression is masked by something happier.

"What's up?"

She shoots a coy smile his way and says, "I'd like to take you up on that dinner offer of yours." He offers a toothy grin.

"Cool."

. . .

The mirror's mocking her now.

Lucy's eyes trail the outline of her figure. She's wearing a simple knee-length, coral-colored number that accentuates her curves (one can't tell immediately but under her pale sweater, the dress is strapless.) She's decided against jewelry or anything too fancy because she's going to dinner with a friend - her _best_ friend, in fact - not a business meeting. Her gaze lands on her own discouraged features and her lips pull into an even deeper frown.

She stares at herself in dissatisfaction - it really shouldn't be this difficult. It's _just_ Natsu and it's _just _dinner. Besides, they've done this sort of thing countless times so what makes today any different?

She sighs and languidly runs a hand through her blonde tresses.

The distressed woman jumps with a start as the door opens to reveal her roommate.

"Lucy-san," she begins animatedly, "You look absolutely gorgeous!" Lucy gives the blue-haired beauty a tired smile and sits down on her bed, looking on as Juvia's expression turns to that of puzzlement.

"You do not seem as happy as Juvia had assumed you would be. Are you not delighted about your date?" Lucy solemnly shakes her head at her companion.

"It's not a date." The water mage purses her lips in thought.

"Well, that's not what Natsu-san said. Juvia believes his exact words were, '_asked her out_.'"

"He told you that?"

"Oh no, no, he told Gray-sama. Juvia was only listening." Lucy giggles a little, mood lightened significantly, before hugging her friend. She pulls away and stands, moving to leave. Once she's at the threshold, she sends Juvia a slight nod and mouths a thank you before finally closing the door.

She pads down the stairs quietly and slips on her dainty black flats. When she's finally outside, she's startled to find Natsu waiting for her in his usual vest-and-scarf outfit.

She suddenly feels silly for dressing up.

She doesn't have time to be crestfallen, however, because suddenly he's shoving roses in her face (she can't decide if she's taken aback or irritated) and saying how _lovely_ she is.

Her stomach churns at his compliments and she states that he looks good himself. He tells her that he wanted to dress nicer but thought better of it because she would like him no matter what he was wearing (she wonders how he can say this so confidently, but makes no attempt to deny his claims.) She makes a noise of affirmation and that's about as much conversation they have until they reach their destination.

It's opening night and the place is packed. She doesn't even know why they're there in the first place because it's obvious that the restaurant operates solely on a reservation system. She turns to Natsu, intending to tell him of this but he's disappeared. She frantically searches for him, standing on the very tips of her toes to try and locate him but it's no use - there's just too many people.

Huffing out a sigh, she opts to stand around awkwardly (she's expecting him to come back because he would never leave her like that,) and she's probably looking every bit as idiotic as she feels. She waits for another five minutes before she's aware of a tap on her shoulder. Turning around hurriedly, she finds herself face-to-face with her pink-haired friend. Her eyes widen at their close proximity.

"Sorry, I guess I spooked you." He chuckles in that easy-going, laid back way of his and she can't help but notice how beautiful his eyes are, "I didn't mean to - honest." She turns away quickly so as to hide her burning face (because what's wrong with her - it's just _Natsu_.)

"It's okay." she replies in a whisper, wishing that she didn't sound so pitifully weak.

A period of silence settles between the two before the fire dragon slayer speaks boisterously, throwing his arm around her haphazardly.

"So, how bout that meal, huh?" She stares at him incredulously and asks him what he could possibly be thinking because clearly, there's not even enough room for them to stand comfortably - how does he expect to have dinner here without a reservation?

He laughs at her before motioning behind them. A waiter emerges from the crowd and quietly asks them to follow him. They arrive at a booth for two and the uniformed man leaves them once they'd situated.

The look of astonishment hasn't left her face yet so he simply explains to her that he got the reservation over a week ago when he first brought up the of having dinner together.

"Even before I agreed?"

"Even before you agreed." he repeats with a nod. "I had a hard time earlier convincing them that '_yes, the reservation is mine' _and _'no, I'm not a homeless person wanting to crash the party._'" He pouts cutely, "They thought I was a hobo - I'm pretty offended, actually. But anyways, sorry you had to wait a bit."

"You were confirming the reservation?"

"Yeah, I told you to stay put. Didn't you hear me?"

He sure does do a good job of making her feel stupid.

. . .

Dinner isn't as horribly horrid as she expects it to be. In fact, it's quite nice. Natsu manages to keep his voice down, eat with grace (grace for _him_, at least) and he's polite. He pays for the food like a perfect gentleman, spills a drink on a lady but uses his charm and _finesse_ to calm her down until she's finally docile - she didn't know he had it in him, and she thinks this just might very well be the best night of her life.

But, of course, he ends up ruining it somehow and she doesn't understand why he can't just be _freaking _normal for a day.

They're walking out of the establishment and they stumble into a couple of teenagers. She attempts to say _sorry_ but Natsu doesn't give her a chance to because suddenly, one's on the ground and he's pummeling the guy - the other is watching on in mild horror.

She yells at him and he immediately complies - but not before giving the young teen one last spirited punch in the jaw. She tugs him off of the poor boy and apologizes profusely. The older of the two simply helps his friend up and sends her a flirtatious wink, not even sparing a glance towards Natsu.

"Yeah, walk away, you punk!" Lucy knocks him on the head and scoffs at him in exasperation.

"Natsu, what is _wrong_ with you?" She sees the glint in his eyes and wonders what could've possibly made him so angry.

"I didn't like the way he was looking at you."

"You can't just go around beating up people who look at me weird. You don't even know if they were doing it on purpose."

"_They_ definitely were." She crosses her arms over her chest before responding.

"Well, it shouldn't matter to you anyway. It's not like we're together or anything." The sadness in his eyes almost breaks her heart and she's left to ponder whether or not he understands the gravity of what he did because now, he's merely looking at her as if she just kicked a puppy.

"Right," he nods to himself. "No, you're right. I forgot, sorry." She doesn't quite comprehend why, but his lack of a detailed explanation frustrates her.

He doesn't say another word - not even when he drops her off at Fairy Hills. She says goodbye and he offers a half-smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

The following day at the guild, the atmosphere lacks a certain glamour and glitz and it's driving her crazy. She sits alone in a corner, away from her normal spot and sips on her drink. A few people approach her and ask her what's wrong, but she waves them off and tells them not to worry because "_she's fine_."

A few hours pass by and she's still in the same place when she makes eye-contact with a certain pink-haired idiot. It's only for a few seconds and he tries to cheer her up with one of his dopey simpers but she promptly ignores his efforts.

The remainder of the day drags by slowly in the same manner until it's time to go home. Most of the members have already gone home but there's still some others that have stuck around - one of them being Natsu. He attempts to talk to her the whole way home and she lets him because she doesn't even really care anymore. In fact, she doesn't even know why she's so mad at him.

_She just is._

He bids her farewell with an animated wave and a smirk, glad to see that she's finally got life seeping back into her (she seemed so dead earlier.) Because the way he tries so hard for her makes her smile and that's how she leaves him, slightly happier than before.

The day has long since passed and the land of Fiore gets its first feel of rain - the first in over a decade.

It's midnight now and she's still awake - uncertain, really, as to why. She understands how absurd she'd been to have avoided Natsu. She's not completely sure why she's upset with him in the first place and she realizes that if anything, Natsu should be the angry one, not her (she said some really harsh things that she definitely did not mean.) But no, he put on a brave face, he sucked it up. And her? Well, she just _sucked_. She moped around and played the victim when she shouldn't have.

She face-palms a couple of times at her own foolishness.

She can't sleep at all so she settles for staring at the ceiling.

A few minutes into her _stimulating_ activity, she thinks she might be drifting off when she hears a loud rapping at her window.

She looks up to see pebbles being thrown at the glass, the noise slightly louder than the dull beat of the weather - and she knows exactly who it is. As a stereotypical girl and avid romance novel reader, she finds this situation so very _cliché_ (and yet, something inside of her flutters just a little, but she manages to contain herself.) Juvia's still asleep so she opens the door to her balcony, looking over the metal fence to see Natsu standing there with a sheepish smile, the beads of water pelting the surface of his umbrella violently.

"A confession in the rain? How _original_." She sneers down at him.

"Shut up! It's the best I could do!" he shouts back at her.

She's taken aback by the thoughtfulness she senses in his actions - even through the harshness of his words - and at the very fact that he came over just to talk to her.

"Hold on, I'll be down in a second." Suddenly, she's throwing her jacket on, hastily stuffing her feet into her shoes, and before she knows it, she's rushing down the stairs (quietly of course, she wouldn't want to wake up her fellow fairies) with her raincoat in hand, to hear what he has to say - and it better be worth it because she did not just get out of bed at 1 in the morning to listen to mediocrity. When she's finally near the door, she slows her jog to a minimum so that he doesn't think she's too eager (she's supposed to be mad at him, mind you.)

She creaks the doors open slowly and steps outside to see him goofily grinning at her but she makes sure that the scowl on her face reflects the anger that he thinks she's feeling. He stops grinning after a few seconds.

"It's too early for this - why are you here?"

"Well, I didn't wanna wait too long or else I'd forget what I was going to tell you." She raises a fine brow at him and places a slim hand on her hip.

"Okay, shoot." she offers gruffly, rolling her eyes at the flowers and chocolates in his hands - because sure, she's a die-hard romantic but it's going to take a lot more than that to win her over because she's not an easy girl to please. (But she takes a moment to mentally applaud his efforts because _really_, he's out done himself and she didn't even know he was capable of doing all this.)

"Look, I know that you don't wanna talk to me right now - but would you just please listen?" He takes her blank stare as a 'yes.'

"Okay, so I know that I messed up our first date pretty bad and I'm sorry about that, really - I am. But everyone's always saying how ignorant I am about all this love crap and I don't really think that that's fair because why should I get all the credit for being stupid when you're just as oblivious as I am?" She opens her mouth to make a retort - nevermind the slight offense she takes at his comment - but he cuts her off and continues. "You walk around with your short skirts, your weird smile, and you make my heart _hurt_ and somehow, _I'm_ the dumb one? I'm more adept at these kinds of things than you know."

She smiles at him knowingly, "Did you have to look up the word '_adept?'"_

"That's beside the point!"

"Okay." She nods at him in that passive-aggressive way of hers.

"My point is that I see the way guys look at you - and believe me when I say that it happens _all_ the time. It's happened on missions, on trips - they're _everywhere_. The other day when we went to dinner, those guys were making passes at you and it pissed me off because I'm the only one who's allowed to look at you like that. Because _unlike_ them, I'm willing to treat you with respect. Cuz you're a lady and you demand things like that so why not? And yeah, you're kinda pretty and cool and smart and nice. But I can get that with anyone. What I _can't_ find in anyone else is your weirdness and trust me, I really like that side of you. I wouldn't have it any other way - I wouldn't _want_ to have it any other way. So uh, yeah - _here_." At this, he thrusts the bouquet and chocolates into her grasp and she accepts them unconsciously.

She takes a minute to let all that he's said soak in (what'd you know, it _was_ something good,) and unsure of how to respond, she simply blinks at him confusedly.

"Just what exactly are you trying to say?" He throws his hands up in exasperation.

"_Geez _Lucy, do I have to spell it out for you?" (She takes note of the fact that he's used her full name - clearly, he's serious.)

"It'd be nice if you could - "

"I like you, okay?" He scoffs, "And I'm the one that doesn't get it." She smiles at him disarmingly and he's convinced that though she never gave him a clear, solid answer to his emotional admission, he got the message across.

"Are you going to take me out on another date to make up for the atrocity yesterday? Which, by the way, is completely your fault."

"Sure thing." She's beaming now and he's left to wonder if she was ever really upset with him in the first place.

She shifts closer to him, nudging him in the shoulder, "I bet you had help with that speech of yours, huh?" (She bounces back fast.)

She's wiggling her eyebrows at him and he shoves her away playfully.

"Hey! I can be smart when I want to!" he hollers indignantly.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure - with all those big words." Her snide remark causes him to pout childishly.

"You're a bully!" A peaceful quiet takes over and Lucy links her arm in his.

"Hey, I'm sorry about what I said. I didn't mean any of it."

"I know."

"That's good because yeah, you're 'kinda pretty and cool and smart and nice' yourself," Her face splits into a grin as she's saying this - as she's quoting him. "And I wouldn't change a thing about you either."

"You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?"

"Nope."

She doesn't end up going back to sleep, opting instead to invite the fire dragon slayer into the living room of the dormitory. She's hoping that he'll be quiet enough in order to not wake the other girls - he did a decent job on their date - but alas, as per usual when Natsu's involved, he can't possibly eat without making at least _a lot_ of noise and therefore disturbs the sleep of everyone in the building.

The landlady comes downstairs with a look that's not sightly in the slightest and wastes no time in throwing him out - but not without a loud "_boys should not be in here_" first.

And though he's gone and she's getting yelled at, Lucy Heartphilia can't help but think that today was really rewarding.


End file.
